Multi User Interaction

When we talk about interacting with our environment, research questions have often focused on inanimate features such as stationary landmarks. However, some of our most critical interactions involve dynamic social exchanges with other humans. These types of interactions involve recognizing the actions and goals of others, perceiving inner states such as emotions, intentions and beliefs, and coordinating interpersonal attention and behaviors.

Research conducted in this area has included, for instance, studies investigating which elements of social interactions facilitate coordinated behaviors during a joint action transportation task (i.e. two people carrying a stretcher; Streuber, de la Rosa). Specifically, experiments have evaluated how the visual presence/absence of an interaction partner and/or the availability of haptic feedback of the transported object affect performance in coordination tasks.